Ruffian Games have put out a final call for developers to join their merry band on a journey to make awesome games. Having established their studio in 2009 Ruffian's recruitment drive is near an end and the places remaining are few.
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If you're a PS3 owner lucky enough to live across the pond, good news. Amazon has singled you out for savings.

Exclusive to the UK, Amazon has slashed more than 50% off of several PlayStation 3 games including LittleBigPlanet, Grand Theft Auto IV, Mirror's Edge and Tomb Raider Underworld.
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Canadian retail gaming sales grew nearly 33% between 2007 and 2008, and continue to rise despite the current economic climate. The gaming industry generated $2.1 billion in sales, representing a $500 M increase over 2007's $1.6 billion.

Additionally, Canada's top 10 video game titles--ranked by units sold--have been revealed.
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Take-Two issuing over 2.8 million shares to Housers, key studio members following GTAIV's 13 million unit shipment.

GTAIV's sucess bodes well for top Rockstar management, including studio cofounders Sam and Dan Houser and the game's producer, Leslie Benzies. As part of their contract renegotiations announced in December, the Housers and other top Rockstar personnel were offered a stock-based profit-sharing arrangement in order to retain their services until January 31, 2012.

Related to that deal, Take-Two revealed yesterday that it plans to enumerate "certain employees of Rockstar Games" with 2,849,003 in restricted shares in the company during its current fiscal year, which ends October 31, 2009. Take-Two notes that the stock issuance is not yet final, as stockholders will be required to approve the compensation at the company's annual meeting on April 23.
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Take-Two has revealed that the 13 million units of Grand Theft Auto IV it has sold are split more or less evenly across platforms.

Speaking in a conference call following Take-Two's recent financials, one analyst asked, "...can you give us an idea as to this 13 million GTA 4 units, how many of those are Xbox 360 platform? So what's the addressable market for the downloadable The Lost and Damned."

The response from Lainie Goldstein, CFO of Take-Two, was, "It's approximately 50/50, Ed."

Summary taken from spong
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Ve3tro writes: "Take-Two today announced financial results for its first fiscal quarter ended January 31, 2009. Net revenue for the first quarter was $256.8 million, compared to $240.4 million for the same quarter of fiscal 2008. First quarter sales were led by Grand Theft Auto IV, Carnival Games, NBA 2K9 and Midnight Club: Los Angeles."
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Abe Lincoln. Charles Darwin. Edge. Between them they’ve mastered the realms of politics, science and writing about overweight Italian plumbers. And, more importantly than any of that, they’re now all 200. Yep, the long-running and respected games mag has just reached its 200th issue, celebrating the landmark event by publishing 200 unique covers.So if you’re mad for Master Chief, delirious over Deus Ex or want to dip ... » Read More

Taking place on Thursday April 23rd at The Brewery, Chiswell Street, London, this year's MCV Industry Excellence Awards will be the most hotly-contested ever, with 17 accolades up for grabs, across a diverse range of categories covering the entire industry.

Nintendo, EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Sega and Activision will battle it out for the Games Publisher Award, whilst individual titles Guitar Hero World Tour, GTA IV, FIFA 09, Fallout 3, Wii Fit and Call of Duty: World At War compete for Game Campaign.
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Rockstar's opus takes the top prize from retailer trade group; World at War and Wii Fit garner three awards each.

Award season in the gaming industry isn't over just year. The Entertainment Merchants Association today announced its Video Game Home Entertainment Awards, with Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV taking home the retailer trade group's Game of the Year honors.

The blood-spattered immigrant tale also claimed the Action/Adventure Game of the Year category, but was bested by a pair of games in terms of award quantity. Nintendo's Wii Fit earned three awards from the retailer group--Most Innovative Game of the Year, Wii Game of the Year, and Casual Game of the Year. Meanwhile, Activision's Call of Duty: World at War took home its own trio of honors as the PlayStation 3 Game of the Year, Xbox 360 Game of the Year, and Military/Shooter Game of the Year.
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GI.biz: "The nominations for this year's BAFTA Videogames Awards have been released with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare topping the list.

The hugely popular shooter is up for seven separate awards, and is just eligible for nomination by being released after the last BAFTA event in late 2007."
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Gamasutra writes:

"Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet leads the nominees for the ninth annual Game Developers Choice Awards with seven nominations, organizers have revealed.

Number None's Braid follows closely with five nominations. Among the nominations for LittleBigPlanet is the coveted Game of the Year award.

Other nominees for that category include Fallout 3 and Left 4 Dead, each of which received a total of four award nominations; Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto IV, which earned a total of three nominations, and Lionhead Studios' Fable 2. Winners will be honored at an awards show taking place during the 2009 Game Developers Conference."
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Danny Cowan from Gamasutra writes:

"Gamasutra's weekly column, "Saling The World", covers the top five sellers for every available platform in the United States, Japan, and Europe, providing an important update of sales patterns worldwide.

This week's charts, with data taken from February 5th, 2009, find Halo 3 and Call of Duty: World at War at the top of North America's Xbox 360 software sales charts, while Star Ocean: Second Evolution and Mario Kart DS drive sales on portables.

Data for "Saling The World" comes courtesy of the public sales information on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and Amazon.co.jp, with sales split out for each platform and territory, and pre-orders disregarded. This results in a true sense of what games are selling worldwide on the real-time updated service, as follows..."
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Chris Plante of UGO's games blog provides this post detailing the in-game clues in GTA IV that shed light on what to expect in upcoming The Lost and Damned DLC.

I warn that this may be considered a spoiler by some.

"The clue can be found midway through the game, so, to catch you up, let me set the stage. Niko's cousin Roman has a gambler's itch. As his debts accumulate (he's not a particularly successful gambler), Roman struggles to stay out of trouble with other gangs. This whole mess peaks when the local Russian mob kidnaps him. "
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The Video Game Watchdog Team have got their hands on The Guiness Gamers book of Records 2009.
They have made some exclusive page scans from the upcoming 2009 copy.

Click link for further pictures.

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The Popular Franchise Trumps All Other Entertainment Title Sales.

London, UK, 13th of May - The famed Grand Theft Auto series has made headlines yet again! As newly-released sales figures show, Grand Theft Auto IV has crushed the competition by selling 3.6 million units and earning $310 million in its first day of release, earning Guinness World Records for the Highest Grossing Video Game in 24 Hours and the Highest Revenue Generated by an Entertainment Product in 24 Hours. These records establish GTA IV as the most profitable entertainment release of all-time, far surpassing other video game, film and book releases. According to Guinness World Records, this is how the game stacks up against the competition:
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PS3-Sense writes "Some people predicted it and it is now also in the news through the website Nieuwsblad.be, that the Belgian baby killer appears to be a gamer. According to a co-worker of the Game Mania Kim Gelder played the game GTA IV. The murderer also had his face painted while killing the two baby's and a older woman as the Joker from Batman."
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Spending a large portion on 2008 sitting in the gutter after its inital release, maybe Rockstar where right in saying they're confident GTA IV can reach 10 million units. Play.com is the Uks biggest online retailer for consumer electronics...
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Today Rockstar is happy to announce the winner of our Grand Theft Auto IV Custom Portrait Sweepstakes. Please join us in congratulating Louis Bojko of Devon, England, a rabid GTA fan randomly selected amongst the thousands of entrants who signed up for the Rockstar Games Social Club prior to the release of Grand Theft Auto IV last April.
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Last week MTV Multiplayer reported that it could not yet be determined whether "Wii Play" or "Grand Theft Auto IV" was the best-selling game of 2008 in the U.S. But today they finally got the definitive Top 5 2008 list - and it knocks "GTA" to third place.

Today, NPD provided MTV Multiplayer with the numbers they needed and they can now present the definitive list of top 2008 games.

Top-Selling Games In The U.S. For 2008
(All versions combined. Units in millions)

1. Wii Play 5.28
2. Madden NFL '09 5.25
3. Grand Theft Auto IV 5.22
4. Mario Kart w/ Wheel 5.00
5. Call of Duty: World at War 4.63
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IGN writes:

Gamers around the world have already rung in the New Year, but 2008 has some unfinished business left: the Overall Game of the Year Award. That's right -- IGN's much coveted honor will be awarded this Friday, so ready the message boards and put on the flame retardant suits. Before we get to the award itself, IGN will be unveiling each of the five nominees throughout the course of the week (alphabetically in case you were wondering).

Be sure to check tomorrow to see what IGN's Game of the Year is!
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According to the NPD annual software charts for 2008, Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV 360 outsold GTA IV PS3 by nearly 2:1.
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